IBOA hopeful on bank jobs deal

FINANCE union IBOA has said it still believes the almost 500 voluntary redundancies at Bank of Ireland’s Irish operations will proceed as agreed in spite of rumours the bank may need to negotiate its restructuring with the EU.

Last July management and the union hammered out a voluntary redundancy programme that would see 750 staff leave the bank with an agreed severance package.

Of that total 270 were to come from the bank’s operations in the North and Britain.

The IBOA says the negotiations on the staff reductions in those jurisdictions have been completed and the redundancies are already taking place.

However, to date — while it is agreed by both sides that a further 480 positions have to be eradicated in the Republic — negotiations on how that would occur have yet to be advanced.

The severance terms on offer to staff who take voluntary redundancy are seen as significant by current standards. They are six weeks’ pay per year of service, subject to a cap of 2.5 years’ pay (inclusive of statutory). According to Industrial Relations News, the minimum payment for those with greater than two years’ service is €12,500 and for those with between one to two years’ service the minimum is €10,000.

“Some commentators have speculated that Bank of Ireland may need to renegotiate its restructuring plan with the European Union,” said an IBOA spokesman. “At this stage we are proceeding and the bank is proceeding on the basis of what was agreed last July. The redundancy element still stands. No one from the EU or Department of Finance is saying anything different.”

Much is dependent on the attitude of the victors in the upcoming election.

IBOA acknowledges that the office of Minister for Finance is now armed with what it describes as unprecedented powers in relation to the banking sector and the Government could potentially shake up the way not just Bank of Ireland is run but also AIB.

The latter has yet to submit its restructuring plan and the union believes it will be early March at the earliest before it has sight of what is proposed by chairman David Hodgkinson.